Vitamin tablet makes your whole body an authentication token

The pill was introduced by Regina Dugan, former director of the
Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and current head
of Motorola's research division.

It highlights the fact that hacking is a major concern as we
conduct more and more of our business online and that many
companies are investigating or implementing alternative
authentication strategies to the straightforward username/password
scenario.

"I take a vitamin every morning, what if I could take vitamin
authentication?" Dugan asked onstage at the D11 conference. She
then went on to describe the device as "my first super power".

The tablets contain a small chip with a switch and something
that amounts to an inside-out potato battery. After swallowing it
the acids in your stomach act as electrolytes, which power the
battery and turn the switch on and off in a sequence.

The result is that your body contains an 18-bit ECG-like signal,
which can be picked up by devices and used as an authentication
method.

The tablets are already manufactured for medical purposes by a
company called Proteus and have been cleared by the FDA. Dugan
didn't comment on the biological specifics but it is logical to
assume that the life of the token would therefore correspond with
the pace of your digestive tract.